The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems Quotes

“Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

“I will come back to you, I swear I will;
And you will know me still.
I shall be only a little taller
Than when I went.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

“... but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

“How first you knew me in a book I wrote,
How first you loved me for a written line”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

“A wind with a wolf's head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat upon the floor.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

“Siege

This I do, being mad:
Gather baubles about me,
Sit in a circle of toys, and all the time
Death beating the door in.

White jade and an orange pitcher,
Hindu idol, Chinese god,—
Maybe next year, when I’m richer—
Carved beads and a lotus pod...

And all this time
Death beating the door in.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems

“Never May the Fruit Be Plucked”

Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the bough
And gathered into barrels.
He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs.
Though the branches bend like reeds,
Though the ripe fruit splash in the grass or wrinkle on the tree,
He that would eat of love may bear away with him
Only what his belly can hold,
Nothing in the apron,
Nothing in the pockets.
Never, never may the fruit be gathered from the bough
And harvested in barrels.
The winter of love is a cellar of empty bins,
In an orchard soft with rot.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems